


you'll be here in my heart (always)

by choncena



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, BAMF Sharon Carter (Marvel), Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Domestic Avengers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Freeform, Humor, M/M, Multi, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Parent Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Some Plot, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, the plot is tony trying to take care of his alternate universe baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-06-30 12:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15751755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choncena/pseuds/choncena
Summary: After the Accords, Tony never thought he'd have any family left, with the exception of Pepper and Rhodey but even then they were a bit too busy for him— Rhodey with PT and newly-single Pepper with SI; there was only him, Vision, and Rhodey in the compound, and occasionally the spider-kid would pop by but he too was busy with school so Tony didn't count him. He was completely alone.But then Bruce comes back. Then Natasha, and along with her, Clint.He thinks he's finally gotten some of the family he wished he had back, but then he's staring back at blue eyes and a gummy grin so familiar to him that suddenly—maybe— he realizes he has more of a family than he thought he had.





	1. do you know somewhere she can live free; river, deliver her there

Chaos.

Chaos ticking, ticking, ticking.

Heat rising and rising and rising and there was no opening, no access point. She couldn’t run. _They_ couldn’t run.

It was her panting against her child’s dark wisps, hot and damp against the fires that licked the concrete walls beyond them. There was no silence and only screaming.

The ache in her body felt unimportant to the task at hand and she couldn’t wait for him any longer. One second more— she counts in her head— and there would be no chance of survival for any of them. She can’t _hear_ him but rather the guards, heavy in their artillery, shouting at each other in a Russian tongue she can only catch snippets off: _kill now, success salvaged, not possible, place burned down._

“No,” she murmurs despite herself, “Where are you _goddamnit—”_

Her baby starts to cry, the wails joining with the roar of the flames and gunshots ringing around them. Her shushing brings no success and she’s squeezing her eyes shut, dreading what’s to come. Her daughter, her love, her life, is crying against her chest and her hands could only do so much to bring her closer in comfort. She has no resources at hand, the only materials in the room a cot and an aluminum cup. She is trapped while the building, the base, is caving down on them.

She waits so long in the heating atmosphere that her child, sweaty and shaking against her own clammy skin, falls asleep, tired from her own cries. She doesn’t wake when the titanium-grade door of their little cell slams against the wall and standing, haloed against the orange and reds, is her husband, battered and bruised and with only a Beretta in his hand and one, most possibly, half-full rifle strapped across his chest.

“We need to go,” he says, voice steely in panic.

She wants to celebrate his return but there’s no time. Cradling her child’s head against her neck, she rushes out of the dirty room and follows her husband down the hall, standing close at his back as he shoots down the guards a bit half-cocked.

“What have they done to you?” She gasps when she sees the lacerations against his back, so deep that even his accelerated healing has done little to cover them. He twists his head to look back at her and gives her a smarmy grin but she gasps again when the light from the ensuing fires closing present the bruises and cuts and grime against his cheeks and forehead.

“Everything they needed to do to make me cooperate, I guess,” he says nonchalantly but years of marriage has shown her the deflections in his voice and she knows that the pain and panic and worry and slowly fading optimism is hiding underneath the bravado.

“How did you get out?”

She screams as he puts a bullet through a man’s skull at point blank and the blood splatters against her face.

“Whatever’s happening happened and they got distracted,” he grunted, keeping the Beretta up as they step over bodies as quickly as they can to avoid being swallowed by the flames.

“We need to get to the transporter.”

She stops in her tracks and blinks at him, dirt and ashes clinging to her skin.

“No—”

He paces back to her from where he was a few steps ahead and grabs her shoulders, leans down to look her in the eye.

“We need to get there—”

“No—!”

“It’s the only way we’ll get out of this—!”

“It won’t work!”

Everything stops. Their heavy pants mingle with the crackling of the inferno and it feels heavy.

With their child, blessedly, asleep pressed against her chest, her electric blues harden against baby blues and she thinks, she’s become a mother, but she can never _be_ one.

“We can’t risk it.” Her voice crack halfway and she’s openly crying now.

“We have to,” her husband replies back softly, his tears mirroring her own. 

She shakes her head, her hairs stringy as they follow the movement. “I don’t know if it’s stable and we can’t lose her—”

“We’re losing her either way.”

She brings her head back up to him and unconsciously tightens her hold against the babe.

“It can only transport one and even then, I don’t know if it’ll work.”

He lets out a heavy breath through his nose and cradles her face against his, forehead to forehead, with the handgun still in his hand pressing against her grime-stained face.

“It’ll work because _you_ built it. She’s going to be okay. But we need to get there and you need to activate it.”

She nods rapidly and before she knows it, he’s let go of her and they’re wading their way through lowly-dim hallways and strings of dead bodies.

Their boot-clad feed echo with the raging fire slowly creeping in and the occasional shouts of guards a few falls away. They don’t have a clue as to what happened and they’re basically walking blind with only two nearly-empty weapons at their disposal.

It seems an eternity before they reach the transporter room and she feels herself sigh in relief even just a small percentage at the electric artillery around.

Fortunately for them, their captors had already decided to begin the startup process and the screens were on and ready to be commanded but before she can even smile back at him at the fact, the foreign shouting nears followed by the stampede of tactical boots.

Her eyes widen, heart beating out of her chest as she looks at her husband, her soulmate, her _everything_ , and it hurts. The twisting in her gut coils tighter when he looks back at her with the familiar clench in his jaw and in that moment, she knows she’s already lost him.

“Please no,” she mumbles, lip wobbling to warn the oncoming set of tears.

He smiles ruefully back at her before stepping into her space, clutching her face in his hands like he held the whole world and he was.

“You know what I have to do,” he whispers in response, his hot breath fanning her face. She shakes her head, words choking around a sob. “You’re the only one who can do this.”

“I don’t want to— not without you!”

“It’s the only way she’ll live,” he whimpers, throat closing up. She looks down at their daughter then, barely even a year old, and her heart aches; for herself, her child, her husband, the family she just got and can never experience.

She pushes her head up so her chapped lips slant against his. It’s almost a bruising kiss, the way she’s pushed against him, and she tries so hard not to feel it as a final goodbye.

With one hand holding up the child, she presses the other against his cheek, his own pressing on top of it.

“I love you, Steve Rogers, and I always will.”

He laughs, just a breathy exhale and a quick quirk of the lips, before he’s leaning down and pressing his lips to the crown of brown hair, eyes closing.

“I wish we had more time,” he says as he comes back up, eyes red and puffy, and turns away, the rifle held in his hands now, “I love you!” And he’s running out of the room to face the onslaught of bloodthirsty guards looking for them, but not before locking the titanium barrier door shut behind him, meaning that she can’t get to him and they her.

She somehow finds a metal crate in one corner of the room and gently settles down the babe in there, bundling up the blankets to cater for a softer surface and trying to ignore the aching feeling. She also tries to ignore the shootout going on outside the door so she refocuses her attention on turning on the transporter.

It’s quick and she’s panicked, fingers racing against the keyboards and screens and when she hears the silence of the nearest gunshot, she knows Steve’s dead and she lets out a heart-shattering sob. She’s breathing hard, tears blurring her vision as she swipes down and left and right before finally, she’s recording a video as hard foreign yells and banging are heard outside.

“My name is Natasha Stark and by the time you’re watching this, I’m already dead—”

The banging continues behind her as she cries and speaks and just seconds from the door caving in, she sends the message and hopes it reaches the other side. 

There’s no more time— she holds her daughter, now wailing, close to her body once last time and presses her mouth against her head, feeling the wetness drop down to the baby’s skin.

“I’ll always be with you, my love,” she promises, “always and forever.” And then she’s placing her child back in the crate and activating the portal, the space inside it turning a galaxy of blues.

With the door barely holding together, and the message still sending, she looks at her child one last time, wishing this wasn’t the only way, and pushes her through the portal, then suddenly, there are no more cries and her heart _breaks_.

The door gives in then, the men coming in angrily yelling for her death— or capture, she can’t translate anything in her daze of panic— and she has to dodge their bullets to get to the computer and see if her message was sent.

The portal behind her quakes, the structure creaking and whirring the way it’s not supposed to and she knows her baby girl has made it through successfully and these men, the ones who took her family from their home and left them to suffer for days, maybe even weeks, on end, have no way of getting to the other side.

It ends for her when she feels the hot, searing pinch of metal piercing her skin and muscles.

Her body freezes and her nerves spark dangerously, her mind going fuzzy.

She falls to the floor, blood dripping out of the middle of her torso, and watches as her captors, too busy trying to find out what the problem with the portal was, ignores the completion of her delivery on a screen.

She smiles weakly as her eyes blink at the blurry 100% symbol, feeling her body succumb to darkness.

Later, once her heart has stopped beating, the portal, unstable after its use, will collapse and burn the whole place down to cinders, leaving no evidence except for scorch marks and ashes.

But there, laying down on a damp and polluted asphalt floor, she uses the last of her strength to crane her head and peek out the doorway and just nearing the edges, she finds the blood-smeared blond hair of her husband.

Natasha Stark, Iron Woman, wife of Captain America, Steve Rogers, and mother of a beautiful baby girl with her daddy’s sky blue irises and mother’s hair, dies holding neither but doesn’t die alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short and unbeta'd but I just wanted to get the plot going and the background in so here it is!! I hope you liked that so far and if you wanna see more of my stuff or just simply talk to me, check me out on twitter @starksins!! (also catch that wondertrev/wonder woman reference lmao)


	2. somewhere something is calling for you; two worlds, one family

Anthony “Tony” Stark wakes up in a penthouse in Manhattan on a bleary May morning, cold and alone.

He blinks tired whiskey-brown eyes to a cloudy New York skyline, clouds sweeping by in a haze of gray and barely-there blues. The coffee mug in his hand had gone cold from how long he’d been staring out past his kitchen counter to the floor to ceiling windows of the living room, mindlessly listening as the city honked and whirred 80 floors below him.

He turns his head when the ding of his private elevator sounds and the nearing of heavy footfalls echo through his almost desolate space.

Tony barely bats an eyelid. It’s just Natasha that stands in front of him on the other side of the barrier in a black, skintight catsuit.

He hasn’t seen her in nearly half a year, seeing as she would mostly be off doing her own thing with Ste— Rogers, Wilson, and Maximoff and then would occasionally drop a call just for updates or simply just ask how he and the others back at the compound were doing.

Let it not be known that Natasha Romanoff just  _ barely _ had a soft spot for Tony Stark, despite their little bump last year.

He tries to mask his surprise when he sees that she’s bleached and cut her hair but the corners of her lip quirks so he guesses he’s done a shit job doing so. Her tactical boots stomp against the tile as she makes her way to him with a bag of Thai takeout in her hand.

“Not that I’m happy you brought me food, but what’s with the get-up? Fury decided to send you undercover again?” he asks, swishing the mug around under his nose then grimacing when he finally notices the absence of warmth in the drink. 

Natasha sets the plastic bag right under his nose and he barely restrains himself as he digs out the cartons of rice and curry. She huffs and settles on a chair on the other side of the table, right across from him, and slides his mug over to her side, lifting it to her own mouth.

“You’re deflecting,” she sing-songs as if she wasn’t just AWOL for the past half-year, locking her eyes with his as she smirks and takes a sip of his cold coffee.

Tony pauses and twists the carton of rice in his hand before locking his eyes on hers and raising a brow. “And you’re bribing me.”

The now-blonde lets a beat of silence dance before smiling ruefully. “We need you.” 

Tony groans, dropping his fork on the counter and bowing his head. 

“We found an off-grid HYDRA base and we’re gonna need a heavy hitter. We already have Clint going in and Bruce agreed to be stand-by so you’re needed,” Natasha explains, keeping her gaze steady on the billionaire.

“You mean Iron Man’s needed,” he mumbles.

Natasha smirks teasingly. “You  _ are _ Iron Man.”

Tony lifts his head up to glare at her before standing straight back up, shoving a forkful of rice in his mouth. “Why didn’t you just get Rogers?” He tries to avoid a spit of venom at the words.

“Can’t.” The spy shakes her head. “The mission’s U.N.-sanctioned.”

Tony raises a dubious brow, pausing in shock. The fallout with the Accords took a heavy toll between Avengers duties and foreign interference so for him, it was a bit hard to believe that going after something as dangerous, but still cut off from public knowledge, as HYDRA would be encouraged by a world nations’ panel. 

“Seriously?” 

“Ross vouched for us,” Natasha confirms, handing over a manila folder and childlike glee rushes through the genius at the cliché “CONFIDENTIAL” stamped in red on the front. 

“Which one?” Tony asks. With his food momentarily abandoned, he thumbs at the papers and frowns at the abundance of missing data and blank lines.  

“T’Challa’s Ross. Everett. Since Agent Carter’s with him, and she was there for both D.C. and Berlin, she was able to vouch so he managed to explain to the panel that we’re the only ones that can deal with it.” Natasha watches as Tony rakes his eyes over what little information they have, leaning her body against her folded arms. “We barely have any info to go off of. All we know is that it’s in Spain, a few klicks off the Sierra Nevada, and that HYDRA was stupid enough to put it above ground.”

“Well, bless Sharon then,” Tony hums, tapping his knuckle against the crease of the folder. “If you give me coordinates, FRIDAY can scan for schematics. I have a better satellite uplink than the federal government— I think I can get blueprints.” He sends the spy one of his dazzling smiles, to which she only rolls her eyes at.

“Of course you do,” she snorts before getting up from the barstool and heading back towards the elevator.

Tony gnaws at his lip and watches her leave, reminiscing a time of fiery red locks instead of platinum blonde and fleece pajamas instead of kevlar catsuits.

“You need me.”

Natasha turns just as she enters the lift and quirks the corners of her lips up, although there’s a hidden sadness to it all. “We’ve always needed you, Tony.”

Tony merely blinks at her, speechless. Another roll of her eyes is what he gets in response to his silence before the ding signals the doors closing and she nods at him one last time. 

“Wheels up in 20. Don’t be late.”

…

“Hey, bird brat, try to aim for the guys with the big fucking octopus on their helmets and not the guy in the giant Campbell’s soup can, please.”

_ “Oops, sorry. I was confusing an idiot with 20 other idiots.” _

_ “Boys,”  _ Natasha scolds over the comms. 

Tony hears Clint grumble to himself through the comms as well and he simply sighs before blasting a new crowd of HYDRA morons and making his way down another corridor.

The gunmetal-gray doors are passed in a haze, FRIDAY’s schematics pulling nothing up as he whizzes by. The walls locking them in are old, run down with grime from age and leaking pipes that run mazes on the ceilings. The metal doors are rusting too, their edges falling apart without use. 

Tony honestly doesn’t know how HYDRA survived operating under these conditions. 

The bunker is at least three floors above and three floors below ground but nothing’s worth the time until he reaches the the double gates leading down to the basement levels. 

“Team, I’m in position,” Tony murmurs, “Status report.”

_ “At your six,”  _ Natasha replies primly. 

_ “Still outside for signal,” _ Bruce answers, the wind from outside crackling through the speakers with his voice. 

_ “Vents’re lookin’ a bit dusty,”  _ is all that Clint says and Tony can’t help but roll his eyes. 

One particularly strong repulsor blast later and they’re making their way through poorly evacuated chambers. 

All the agents must’ve all focused their attention on protecting the upstairs that they completely left the basement levels empty, considering there was no one on guard. Papers were strewn recklessly about and doors to operation rooms were just left open. 

An uneasy feeling settles just under Tony’s ribcage as the suit clomps around on the cement, Natasha’s light steps following softly behind him. 

_ “Boss, I’m detecting signs of life in the main engine room a floor down,” _ FRIDAY’s Irish lull tells him. 

He turns to Natasha and lifts up the faceplate. 

“Something’s alive a floor down. Wanna come?” Tony asks the redhead, a small tilt of humor in his manic grin.

The spy shakes her head. “I’m gonna see if there’s anything salvageable here. You go ahead.” 

Tony nods curtly and brings the faceplate down. “Hawkeye, you seeing anything?”

_ “Someone just set the negative third floor on fire if that’s any consolation— booyah! Right in the neck!— and I  _ may _ or may not have triggered a self-destruct sequence so if you’re gonna get somethin’, y’better get it now.” _

“Shit,” both Natasha and Tony mutter simultaneously. They share one quick look of acknowledgement with each other before Natasha’s running down through the rooms and Tony’s flying his way down to the lower floor.

He can already smell the heat, smell the burning of mold and underground water and old metal, as he nears his destination, FRIDAY leading him with a pinging map. 

The pinging stops as he rounds the corner. He hovers as he looks at the metal gate, wide open as if someone had exited it with a panic. 

“FRIDAY, direct all power to the repulsors just in case,” he mutters, earning a small  _ “yes, Boss”  _ in reply.

“Okay, Widow, Hawkeye, I’m nearing target.” 

Tony hears nothing but the hissing of the pipes and the loud metallic echo of the armor on damp concrete ground. The space is large and dark, only filled by the various litter surrounding the center of attraction which is nothing but an odd metallic contraption set up smack-dab in the middle of the room but it looks like it was crumbling under disrepair. Wires are sticking out and chunks of metal are missing around it, but it’s smoking. He has FRIDAY take a quick snapshot of the machine before switching his focus.

He’s steady, armor eyes a glowing blue as the HUD circles in on possible weak points. The uneasiness sets in once again when FRIDAY circles in on a small metal carton hidden behind an engine server. 

_ “Life force detected, sir.” _

The small “what the fuck” exits Tony’s mouth as he cautiously nears the box, mind racing a million miles as he questions what the life force could possibly be. 

“Please be a puppy, please be a puppy—”

He isn’t prepared at all to stand a foot and a half away from it and hear wailing. More specifically, a baby’s. 

“What the fuck?!” 

Tony runs to it in a haze, scrambling down on his knees to lift open the crate and his heart stops. The child, no older than a year most likely, blinks up at him with a snotty nose and a sweaty face ruby-red from crying. 

_ “Tony, I found something,” _ Nat’s voice crackles in and he can barely hear the horror in her voice over the sobbing of this lost baby. 

“Yeah so did I.” He stares for a second longer before releasing a stuttering sigh and steeling his jaw. “FRIDAY, retract the helmet.”

The humidity is the first thing that slaps him in the face. The second is the baby’s clammy hands when he picks them up to cradle them against his chest, panic bubbling in his chest.

_ “Congratulations, Boss, my indicators sense that you are holding a baby girl,”  _ FRIDAY quips. Tony sneers, too occupied to snark back to his own AI. 

The baby— the girl— snuffles her crying into the crook of Tony’s neck, tiny hands clenching and unclenching at the armor. Tony winces when he realizes she’s trying to grasp at something in comfort. He bounces her, shushing her in reassurance but to no avail. The building is crumbling around them and Tony has to get out  _ now. _

“Romanoff!” he shouts into the comms, already flying out unsteadily with a distressed minor in his arms.

_ “Tony, I cleared the floor. I’m back above ground, where the hell are you?” _

“Uh yeah... ‘Bout that—”

_ “Tony, you better get out of there  _ now!”

A beam comes crashing down in front of him and both him and the baby scream, the baby girl in his arms getting even more hysterical. 

_ “Stark, what the fuck did you find?”  _ Clint’s voice crackles through the comms.

“Run now, ask questions later, Barton!”

_ “I  _ am _ running!” _

With the odd rush of deja vu washing through him, Tony holds the baby— god, he really needs to find out if she has a name or not— closer to his chest, his armor, trying to drown out the increasing volume of her cries.

_ “Boss, the structural integrity of the building is collapsing.” _

“Well, shitfuck- Romanoff, clear the door!” Tony yells, swerving left and right to dodge falling pipes, the baby essentially screaming into his ear.  _ Jesus, kid, you got a strong set o’ lungs on ‘ya,  _ he thinks.

_ “10-4,”  _ Natasha replies quickly.

The base fills up with smog too quickly and Tony thinks that whichever HYDRA goon did this sure was efficient. He tucks the baby’s head in further into the crook of his elbow, careful of the armor’s plates, in an attempt to lessen the amount of smoke getting in her lungs. She’s still agitated, her cries bordering on dry, but he can’t do anything but swallow the lump in his throat and the dread settling under his skin and keep going. He pulls the helmet back up so  _ he _ doesn’t inhale too much smoke and with the HUD back on, it’s easier for FRIDAY to guide him back up. 

_ “Tony, exit point’s clear but you better hurry—” _

“I’m trying— FUCK!” Tony cuts off as a particularly large chunk of cement falls in front of him.

_ “Tony!” _

“We’re fine—!”

_ “Who’s  _ we _?” _

Tony ignores Clint, rushing now. He can see the exit— which is more or less a large gaping hole in the wall where the bunker doors once were— and the mountains beyond the quinjet and teams of agents swarming it. 

_ “Boss, the bunker’s about to cave in!”  _ FRIDAY panics.

“Max power to thrusters—” Tony, careful of precious cargo, fights his way through failing pebbles of cement and metal and he’s flying, flying, flying—

“Tony!”

Bruce is the next voice he hears next to his own heaving breaths and the first thing he sees when he barely misses the last bits of the bunker come down on his ankles. The doctor is running towards him, followed by a weary looking Natasha and rosy-cheeked Clint. A team of paramedics and miscellaneous agents keep their distance but they’re right behind them.

The helmet retracts and Tony gasps in a large inhale of the fresh air outside, despite the smog from the bunker’s flames. “I forgot how much I hated these types of missions,” he scoffs lightly, trying to lighten the mood but Bruce has a frown to his face and the crease between Natasha’s brows deepen. Clint just blinks blankly at him.

They’re all looking at his arms.

He clears his throat and shuffles his arms so the baby’s face isn’t pressed against the crease of his elbow and hence, the hard pinching surface of the armor anymore but instead out towards the others. His fingers meddle with the edges of the rugged blanket covering her face and the crying stops to give way to a curious pucker and sun-lit crystalline blue eyes blinking up at them.

Tony doesn’t say anything as he assesses the others’ reactions, but the baby gurgles at them, tiny hands reaching out, and Clint is the one to break the silence.

“What the absolute  _ fuck. _ ”

…

Clint’s sipping on a Mott’s apple juice box when he walks into the medlab a few hours later.

“So who’s the baby mama?” he blurts out the second he steps in, molars gnawing around the plastic straw.

Tony looks up and glares at him, though the intensity of his glare is weakened by the gurgling baby he’s bouncing on his knee while Bruce looks her over. Tony is holding both of her tiny hands in his, tiny fingers only grasping to some of his, and Clint thinks it’s funny considering how they had no time to stop by a Babies-R-Us and buy her clothes so he suggested they just tie one of Tony’s ratty old t-shirts to fit her like a onesie. So, reluctantly, Tony had grumbled all the way through fitting the babbling little girl into one of his black AC/DC shirts.

“Well,” Bruce leans back. “She’s healthy as far as I can see, but then again, I don’t really have any experience with pediatrics so I’m not really the best guy to check over her health, but I did run a blood sample and it’s—” Bruce makes a face, creasing his brows as he blinks down at the child in Tony’s lap as if he was contemplating something, “—it’s odd.”

Tony tenses, ignoring the saliva dripping down his fingers as the baby bites them, all gums and no teeth. “What do you mean ‘odd’?”

Bruce glances between him and Clint nervously. His gaze lingers on Clint, an unspoken conversation between him and the archer that Tony cannot translate, before Clint shrugs, sticks the plastic straw back in his mouth, and sips loudly to avoid saying anything. Bruce yields, bowing his head and taking off his glasses to wipe them.

The baby is still chewing on Tony’s fingers. 

Bruce takes another second, another pause, before opening his mouth and choking around the first word before Natasha, quite loudly, makes her entrance. 

“Tony, you have to see this,” she demands, a slight incredulity in her voice but her eyes seem sad when their eyes connect, and Tony doesn’t exactly miss the sullen quick-second glance she gives at the girl in his lap. 

Tony sucks in a breath and follows her out of the medbay wordlessly, Clint and Bruce following suit. He pays no mind to the weight in his arms even as he turns the halls, his brain blank in anticipation of what Natasha has to show. He doesn’t hear Clint and Bruce’s hushed whispers, or feel small, cold fingers brush against his neck, or even hear the nonsensical sounds of the tiny voice right next to his ear.

It feels odd, he thinks, to be holding such precious cargo. Tony never really thought about kids, not with the lifestyle he had as a teenager or young adult, and certainly not since he became Iron Man. But once upon a time, he did— with Pepper, just before the Mandarin attacks. 

He loved Pepper, saw something with her in the time after New York, but like always, it didn’t work out. He still loves her, cherishes her even, but the spark just wasn’t there anymore. He couldn’t be what she needed, and she never really understood the connections he had with the other Avengers, despite those relationships amicable. She couldn’t exactly see why he had to keep building his suits, why he wanted to spend more time working with the other supers, and he, on the other hand because the relationship wasn’t exactly one-way, just  _ couldn’t _ be there for her when she needed him to. Tony couldn’t settle, not with Wanda’s vision still fresh in his mind even a couple years later, so he did what he could to help the Avengers and that was the last domino to fall. Tony knew the relationship was, and will always be, there but the romance was just gone.

Holding that baby girl makes him think of what could have been, but aside from his lack of domestic life, it was also his own mind that scared him. 

Looking at the angelic face in his arms reminds him of his own childhood, his own upbringing. Looking back at that reminds him that he doesn’t know the first thing about being a parent, especially being a  _ present _ parent. Tony can mentor, can guide a kid, like what he’s doing with Peter, but he can’t  _ care _ for one. He’s never gotten the chance to and now that he might, he can’t think of a single thing about knowing how to be  _ there. _

Natasha leads them to a conference room and Tony lights up significantly when he sees Sharon standing outside. 

“Sharon!” 

She strides towards them, rolling her eyes at Tony, but she’s smiling nonetheless. “Hi, Tony,” she chuckles, stopping right in front of him and looking at the baby. 

“Fury put me on babysitting duty while you guys talk,” Sharon says, nodding her head towards the room.

Tony’s eyebrows furrow. “Fury’s here?”

Sharon shrugs, reaching over to take the baby and Tony easily passes her to him, ignoring the slight pang in his chest at the absence of her warmth. “U.N. or no U.N., anything that has to do with you guys,” her eyes dart over all four of the present Avengers, “Fury deals with.”

She then locks her eyes on Tony’s, smirking. “You really have to stop getting into so much trouble, cuz.”

“Well, what can I say? I’m a Stark,” Tony replies, giving her a playful grin. She just laughs before making her way around them and going the way they came, but not before throwing a small wave over her shoulder, the baby already giggling as they walk down the hall and around the corner. 

Tony doesn’t admit to the longing stare he gives in their direction, and if the others noticed, they don’t dare to make a comment. 

“Y’got somethin’ to show me, Romanoff?” Tony teases, siding up to Natasha as they walk into the conference room together. 

“I found a video,” she says bluntly, deciding not to delve further until Fury’s had his word in, which only leaves Tony a tad frustrated at the cliffhanger.

Nick Fury and Maria Hill stand at the front of the conference room, arms crossed and faces dangerously neutral. 

“Sit down, Stark. You’re gonna wanna hear this,” Fury says, short and to the point, before handing the metaphorical mic to Natasha.

Tony reluctantly takes his seat right across from her.

“While you were investigating the other floor, I found a server room and luckily enough, it wasn’t completely ruined yet.” She sighs, turns her head down, and blinks her eyelashes up at Tony before turning away. Anxiety brews up in his stomach.

She swipes her fingers across the glass table, the teal holograms coming up in front of Tony’s own face and he stares, shell-shocked at the woman’s face that stares directly at him.

She’s beautiful, all sharp lines of her face and prominent features and he thinks  _ I know that nose _ . It’s like looking at a mirror, save for her electric blue eyes, darker than the baby’s. 

Tony doesn’t see the connection until he sees the bright circular glow emanating from her chest.

He catches the similarities— the hue, the brightness, it’s position— and the differences— the shape, its structure— and he shakes, blinks in disbelief because this is  _ him _ . 

This is another  _ version _ of him.

Oh, he’s so not gonna tell Richards about this. 

Natasha types something in before the image— a video— plays.

A crackle of static before a voice, somber and lulling, comes from the woman staring directly at Tony.

_ My name is Natasha Stark and by the time you’re watching this I’m already dead. _

The woman— _ Natasha _ but not Tony’s Natasha— looks behind her shoulder frantically, and if Tony listens closely he can hear the yelling and unloading of weapons ringing in the background.

Natasha Stark stares back at the camera, her thunderous blue piercing daggers through Tony’s own heart.

_ We’ve been in this HYDRA base for maybe a year now, and I— I still don’t know what they’re trying to do, or what they want from us, but it has something to do with the serum— _

Natasha Stark shakes her head and a sob escapes her chapped and bloody lips.

_ —They got us while I was pregnant for it and now my husband’s dead.  _ Steve’s _ dead. _

Tony’s whole world goes numb. The conference room goes silent, the only noise ringing throughout is the static from the recording.

_ I heard him die. He died so I could get her to the teleporter. They told me to build some kind of cloning machine for them but I hid the teleportation functions within the coding—  _ she smirks but everyone can see the misery.

Gunshots go off in the background along with the muffled screaming of the HYDRA agents trying to break in.

Tony can see the exact moment Natasha Stark gives up.

_ If you’re watching this, you’ve found my daughter.  _ Please,  _ protect her. Keep her safe. _

Another sob, and tears stream down her grime-covered cheeks.

_ And please, love her as Steve and I had. Love her as we would’ve. _

The video cuts to black, pausing right after the moment Natasha Stark brings her hands down on the console, breaking it and sending it up in sparks.

No one moves, and no one talks. Not even Fury.

Tony stays frozen, eyes glued to the blue hue of the holograms. He feels everyone’s eyes on him, breaths held as they await his reaction. His first mistake is looking away and catching Natasha’s—  _ his _ Natasha— concerned look and he has to leave.

He barely remembers the feel of the metal door against his shoulder as he shoves against it to leave the room, or hear his footsteps echoing on the linoleum as he mindlessly winds down the hall. 

He doesn’t even realize that Natasha Stark never shared what the baby’s name was until he’s outside.

His mind is messy, full of questions that he knows will come unanswered. A part of him panics because there’s a version of him out there that’s  _ dead _ , but the part of him that overtakes is the portion of him that comes to the conclusion that he has a  _ daughter _ ; not by conventional means, but still, there’s someone out there that shares his blood, his lineage, a part of him.

His conclusions stop when he remembers that his alternate self is— was— married to _ Rogers _ . 

Tony closes his eyes, tightens his hold around the balcony rail and breathes, sees that little girl in his own memory and does what every engineer does— he analyzes.

He pinpoints the blue eyes to Rogers, obviously, but he looks deeper and he realizes that the downy tufts of dark hair is the same shade of brown as his and he can see the slight upturn of his own nose and the same dip of his Cupid’s bow. Her own skin doesn’t even match one or the other perfectly, but rather a perfect mix of his own and the super soldier’s.

“I was gonna tell you her DNA results.”

Tony tilts his head in acknowledgment as Bruce slides up next him, grasping at his own sleeves.

“They had something to do with mine, I’m guessing,” Tony says, blunt and with a bit of a breathy exhale.

Bruce nods. “She matches. Not perfectly obviously, but in all senses of the word, yes, she is yours.”

“And Rogers’.”

Bruce sucks in a sharp breath. “Yeah. And Steve’s.”

Silence settles like a blanket between them.

Tony mulls everything over as the sounds of nature echo around the compound. The compound is busy as it always is, with agents running around on the grass training and other scientists running around R&D and higher-up officials simply bustling around offering and receiving data for god knows what. They’re still hammering out the Accords— Tony knows that much just because he plays a large part in it— and the compound basically became SHIELD HQ 2.0, more of a workspace than a home. Without the other Avengers, it doesn’t feel much like what the tower used to feel like before Ultron. 

The clicking of heels brings Tony and Bruce out of their stupor. “You boys coming back in?” Natasha says behind them.

Tony inhales. “Yeah, yeah.”

They trek back inside, Tony biting the inside of his cheek as he continues to think. He knows what he has to do. There’s an inkling in him that knows that it’s wrong, that he’s not the right person to do this job, but he’s naturally rebellious to the core and there’s only one thing that can satiate that stubbornness bouncing back and forth at the front of his mind.

“I’m taking her,” he announces the second his feet are back inside the perimeters of the conference room.

Fury blinks at him, face violently neutral. 

Clint bursts out in laughter.

Bruce hums confusedly.

Natasha tries to hide a smile behind her hair.

“Stark—”

Tony’s hands slap against the table, his eyebrows furrowed in finality. An anger rises in him and his only answer as to why is his counterpart’s dying wish.

_ Protect her. Love her. _

“I’m taking her and you can’t stop me, cyclops,” he subconsciously seethes, “I’m not letting you raise her to be  _ your _ weapon.”

Fury’s face stays passive and that sets Tony even more on edge. His fingers curl against the glass, body shaking with unreleased tension.

“We need to call Captain Rogers—” Hill interjects, her expression as close to icy as can be.

Tony freezes. “No. Absolutely not. We are not bringing Rogers in on this.”

“He deserves to know he has a child—”

“SHE’S MY DAUGHTER!” 

The room goes silent as his voice echoes around the small room. His breathing is heavy, tears pricking at his eyelids. He’s still wobbly, the adrenaline wearing off only to have weary frustration take its place.

“She’s my daughter, too,” he repeats, softly to the point of inaudible. He looks down at his feet in refusal to meet the Director’s eye. 

“No bringing Cap into this. It’s my call, too,” he mumbles brokenly.

He nearly jumps when Natasha puts her hand on his shoulder. He tilts his head to look at her. There’s an upturn to her lips, almost in pity, but Tony knows her; she actually agrees with his decision.

“Okay,” she whispers but it’s loud enough for everyone else to hear it.

Tony sucks in a heavy breath and nods. “Okay.” 

Natasha’s giving him his green light to leave, so he takes one last quick glance at Fury and Hill, as if in defiance, before he shoves his way out the door.

He basically runs around the halls.

_ This is a mistake, what have I done? _

He wasn’t cut out to be a father, not cut out to care for anyone besides himself. The evidence was right in front of his eyes— his past, the arc reactor, Iron Man, Pepper. He draws up a pro and con list in his head as he walks, letting his body do the work instead of his own consciousness.

The con list, ‘50 Reasons Why I Shouldn’t Be A Parent’, starts with ‘Howard’ and ends with ‘I’m reckless’. 

He finishes the list in half a minute. 

The pro list, ‘50 Reasons Why I Should Be A Parent’, starts with ‘I get attached’ and ends with ‘I care too much’. 

It takes him the whole walk to the rec room to finish it. 

His feet pause at the archway when he sees Sharon’s blonde head over the couch. Static fills his ears as he tentatively takes a few steps forward and his heart beats louder as he watches Sharon wave a stuffed dragon in front of the baby’s face. The baby waves her hands around in front of her to reach for the toy and her feet kick against the ground as she giggles, eyes scrunching up in joy.

She laughs and Tony feels his heart wrench at the high-pitched chime of it.

~~_ 50 _ ~~ _ 51 Reasons Why I Should Be A Parent. _

  1. _I want her._



Tony walks towards Sharon and the baby and the agent turns her head grinning at him while the baby distractedly gnaws on her own fingers. “Hey, Tones,” Sharon greets with the leftover laughter she was sharing with the baby just moments ago.

“Hey,” Tony whispers softly, shoving his sweaty hands in his pockets and looking down to watch the child.

She’s somehow managed to take the stuffed green and pink dragon hostage, her small hand waving it around while the other is shoved in her mouth. Tony’s shirt still sits loose on her form, despite the impromptu onesie they designed, and it’s an endearing sight to see, even though Tony wants to laugh.

“Come play with her.”

Tony nearly gets whiplash from how fast he turns his neck to meet Sharon’s eyes. He’s panicking inside, his metaphorical feet still on foreign territory, and he knows Sharon sees it but all she does is roll her eyes, scoot over, and pat the spot next to her, emptying the space directly right in front of the baby.

“Sit, Stark,” Sharon demands, raising a brow at him, daring him to challenge her. 

He doesn’t. 

He swallows his fear and slowly settles himself in the emptied space with his feet crossed. He wipes his palms on his thighs, breath shaky as he makes eye contact with the little girl in front of him. She continues to babble, but otherwise, she’s preoccupied and doesn’t pay him much attention.

“She’s Cap’s,” Tony blurts. Sharon simply hums, nonplussed by the statement as if she was expecting it.

“And mine.”

Sharon then turns her gaze up to look at Tony but he’s avoiding eye contact. Sharon chuckles confusedly.

“You don’t have a uterus, Tony.”

Tony shakes his head. “Not from this dimension.”

Sharon clicks her tongue, her own way of saying ‘oh’. The continuous baby babble fills in the gap of silence between the two adults. Tony expected more of a reaction but Sharon’s not much of a reactive type of person. It’s expectant for her line of work, Tony thinks.

Sharon, if anything, looks unbothered by the information. She keeps her poker face, keeps her focus on the child in front of them. Tony’s known her for years, partially raised her, so he knows her tells and right now, they’re telling him that she, for all intents and purposes, really isn’t shaken by the revelations.

Tony knows, of course, the little moment his baby cousin Sharon shared with good ol’ Cap because she told him, said it was a spur-of-the-moment type of thing. He believed her, of course, because he trusts her. 

Just not Rogers.

Sharon, unbeknownst to Steve, knew about him and Tony— whatever it was, anyway. Sharon knew because Tony told her, shared with her the secrets he’s been so privy to keep between him and the Captain only. Whatever it was he and Rogers had, Tony told Sharon everything because, by blood or not, she was family, the only thing he has left from his own childhood, from Peggy.

Whatever happened between Sharon and Steve, Tony knew it wasn’t serious; Sharon said so herself. She wasn’t looking for anything and Steve— well, he wasn’t exactly on-the-market either. Not until  _ after _ , anyway.

Tony’s never been mad or jealous of Sharon. If anything, he laughed with her when she told him, though his heart had twisted a little. He didn’t have to forgive her because there wasn’t anything for her to break apart then. 

It was over long before it could even start.

“So, what happened?” she asks.

Tony breathes in. “Alternate universe me and alternative universe Cap were married, had the baby while they were held captive by HYDRA.”

“Shit.”

Tony nods. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “They’re dead— they’re both dead.” 

He hears Sharon suck in a breath through her teeth, her hand reaching out to grab his and Tony gratefully takes it, turns his palm so he’s holding her hand and she squeezes it in comfort.

“She got away just in time,” Tony mutters, voice breaking. 

“Well, she’s lucky,” Sharon says just as softly. Her eyes are sad and Tony’s never been more thankful to have her at his side.

Tony swallows. “They were gonna call Rogers.”

Sharon’s hand stills in his. “What were they planning to tell him?”

“That he has a kid,” Tony laughs darkly, “I vetoed it.”

“How did Fury accept that?”

“I pulled the ‘she’s mine too’ card.”

Sharon goes silent again.

“Oh, Tony,” she whispers and the dam in Tony’s subconscious breaks. He laughs, emotionlessly, tilting his head up to stare at the bright lights to stop the onslaught of tears.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Share-bear. I don’t know how I’m gonna do this—”

“Hey.” Her voice cuts through his hysterics. She holds his face in both her hands to force him to meet her eyes. “You’re gonna be a  _ great _ dad, Tony. I’ve seen you with Parker, with the babies at the orphanage. You don’t know it, but I’ve  _ seen _ it. You don’t know you do it but you’ve always coddled everybody, gave your time and resources to anyone who needed it. Hell, you built the Avengers  _ suites _ right after New York.”

A whine escapes Tony’s throat at that. Sharon shushes him.

“You already have that instinct, Tones.” Her lips quirk. “You don’t have to change that much at all.”

He doesn’t say a word. Sharon doesn’t mind it though.

“Does she have a name?” she asks.

Tony shakes his head. 

“Well…” the blonde’s lips curl up. “What are you gonna name her?”

The brunet stares at the child, watches as wisps of her dark hair follow her every twitch and turn. He stares at her face, still so rounded and joyous, and catches the shining blues that parallel those of a man he knew so well. 

He thinks of Natasha Stark, and the memory of her, and how she trusted her own self to know to trust another version of herself despite the faults and mistakes. 

He thinks of his best friend, and what he gave up, and he thinks of— oddly enough, Barnes— and his own sacrifices (his mind, Tony thinks, his identity). 

He doesn’t hesitate to utter the name on the tip of his tongue.

“Jamie,” he says and he knows how right it feels when the baby starts crawling over to him, the stuffed dragon still in hand. “Jamie Maria.”

Sharon turns to him with a soft smile as the girl pats at his knees. “A testimony to Rhodey and your mom, huh?”

Tony hums. “And Barnes.”

Sharon raises a confused brow at that. “Barnes?”

Tony picks the baby— Jamie— up and holds her under her armpits so he’s eye to eye with her. “Other-me isn’t the only parent she’s lost,” he says, an indirect answer to her question but an answer nonetheless.

Sharon frowns, obviously not satisfied with the reply but she doesn’t press. 

“Jamie Maria Stark… Beautiful name,” Sharon says instead, watching as the little girl babbles at Tony, slapping her tiny hands against his chest. 

Tony swallows, curving his lips at Sharon in a somber smile. “Jamie Maria Stark- _ Rogers _ . I— She’s his, too.” He looks down at the squirming creature in his hold and whispers to himself, “I owe Natasha Stark that much.” 

“Are _you_ gonna tell him?” 

Tony sucks in a sharp breath, shaking his head so quickly his hair falls in front of his eyes. God, he’s in need of a cut. 

“I— I can’t.”

“Tony, he deserves to know—” Sharon starts. 

“He left,” Tony spits out, starting to get angry at the thought of the man in question, “He left and I couldn’t do anything to stop him.” He sighs. “Who’s to say he won’t do the same to her?”

“Steve. Steve’s to say,” Sharon deadpans. Her flat look makes him shift uncomfortably, Jamie still in his lap.

“He deserves a chance, Tones, you know that,” she says, much more quietly this time. Her eyes are sad but the shadows of understanding cast over them.

Tony keeps his mouth shut. Sharon groans, obviously getting frustrated at his refusal to budge. She rubs her forehead as an act of annoyance at him. 

“I give up trying to make you do things,” she mumbles.

He turns his head and gives her a large cheeky grin, to which she simply responds with a glare.

Sensing the conversation over, he pans his attention back to the giggling infant in his arms. Jamie’s eyes wander around the room, curious blues flitting up and down until they meet Tony’s own brown ones. She gurgles around the hand that’s shoved in her mouth, baby drool falling onto his lap but Tony finds that he doesn’t mind much.

She giggles, bouncing herself up and down in his arms on unbalanced chubby legs and Tony’s heart twists and his chest fills with something light and unfamiliar. The ache, though, isn’t a painful one— one that reminds him of repressed memories and betrayal— but rather a dull ache of something so hidden within him, of something nearly maternal in nature. 

He wonders if this was what his mother felt like when she first held him in her arms, cautious and adoring. He knew, despite their differences, that she loved him, that she tried to protect him the best she could. She loved him as a mother would love her child, loved him as though there was nothing in this world she wouldn’t give up just to see him smile. She tried her best to show him, to tell him, but communication really wasn’t his family’s forte. 

He links that connected to that tumbleweed of emotions in his chest. He blinks weary eyes at cheerful bright ones and he knows, with no hesitation, that he would follow in Natasha Stark’s footsteps; he would do  _ anything  _ to protect this baby. 

Small hands rest upon his cheek, wet and soft, and he knows he would die infinitely to protect this little girl; he knows how much he’s willing to give up everything to make sure she’s safe, to make sure she’s  _ loved _ ; he looks at her, sees a part of himself wrapped up in a little bundle of joy and innocence, and he knows how much he’s willing to suffer the consequences of taking her in as his own. 

Jamie leans forward with her whole body so her forehead rolls against Tony’s temple and the striking feeling of overprotectiveness hits him painfully. 

He  _ knows _ that if she was ever taken from him, he would burn down the world to find her because this was a  _ part _ of him that came from love, from sacrifice. She’s here because the world decided to be cruel and gift her to him as if an act of redemption, of forgiveness. Tony can never forgive himself for everything that’s happened but maybe Jamie can give him that forgiveness. 

There’s an underlying blanket of doubt that curdles in his stomach but it’s overshadowed by this wave of  _ want _ and need to protect, to nurture.

_ Please, oh please, don’t take this away from me, too. _

“Hello, Jamie,” he whispers softly as she meets his eyes and laughs, that angelic laugh igniting something fiery within him. He exhales, smiling, choking on his own words, “I’m your dad.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first off, i love sharon, clint, and nat and they're a bit ooc bc there's absolutely no characterization in the mcu for them and i will forever be salty about it so here, have my fanon personality takes on them (and clint's family doesn't exist bc i don't want them to so his role in cacw is different and will be explained later in the story as well as nat's and bruce's since bruce is here and not in saakar bc i dont want him to be)
> 
> second, i know endgame is literally like 2 months away from when I'm updating this but this is my self-indulgence fic bc i will always be in denial and nothing in the mcu after 2012 is real but i do love the stevetony angst of cacw so here we are
> 
> third, this was also VERY late but i wanna actually finish this one bc i have Plans for jamie (can you tell i don't like the name morgan for baby stark?) so i'll try to flesh out more updates more often so yeehaw
> 
> this is essentially just a self-indulgence fic bc i need baby jamie and dad tony and adopted family domestic avengers in my life so there is going to literally be little to no plot so just an fyi 
> 
> also follow me on twitter @starksins for updates and fun easter eggs that i plan to throw in here and there


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